The government’s consultative body on hunting, the Ornis committee, will hold its first meeting this week despite the autumn season having already started.

BirdLife Malta last week complained it had not received any form of official communication about the committee’s reappointment, “let alone a call for a meeting to discuss and plan enforcement as usually happens before any hunting season commences”.

Environment Minister José Herrera told the Times of Malta  the first meeting of the Ornis committee would be held this Thursday.

The NGO last week also called a press conference outside the Office of the Prime Minister in Valletta, stressing that it had heard nothing about the committee, mere days before autumn hunting began.

BirdLife has received reports of illegal hunting in recent days

The Environment Ministry reacted later, saying that the committee had already been officially approved and its members were being notified.

The committee is chaired by retired magistrate Dennis Montebello, with Sergei Golovkin of the Wild Birds Regulation Unit, acting as secretary. According to the government, it included representatives of the hunting and NGO communities.

BirdLife Malta CEO Mark Sultana expressed concern at the situation with hunting regulation, insisting that a lack of communication could give the impression that poachers and law-breakers did not need to be worried about being apprehended.

The NGO said that it had received several reports of illegal hunting in recent days, ranging from poachers using speedboats to hunt flamingos at sea in Gozo to a poacher caught shooting two birds of prey in Ras il-Wardija.

Read: Protected bird shot - just three days after start of hunting season

BirdLife conservation manager Nicholas Barbara said yesterday that the peak migration of birds of prey had already started and therefore it was of paramount importance that the season’s management and enforcement be discussed.

The autumn hunting season will remain open until January 31. Approximately 10,000 licensed hunters are permitted to shoot 40 different species.